Monday, March 18, 2013

You were thinking Susan Anton, were you?

It's officially the start of spring for all of you guys. Pierre Kelly here getting started to wake and create stories while we kick old man winter out the door for good until December. With that said, we start the first quarter and Hilty must give you the details on it.

Baggage was in a sandwich between $25K Pyramid and along with Feud, it got another one between DED, while 100K Pyramid, Password Plus and 2 Feud shows rounded out the bottom 10. Time to get the first quarter outta here with this.....

And we hit the second quarter powered by gameshownetworknews.blogspot.com.

One year Ago, Steve Harvey's version of Family Feud hit the airwaves. No one believed that it would fit the GSN schedule this way, but it did thanks to higher ratings, making him the new face of the network. It seems as if GSN got itself an anniversary gift: Second season shows this month. That means that they get the Atlanta season on top of the Orlando season as stated in the contract a year ago. How long will it continue to dominate? Keep watching GSN to find out.

Continuing on the subject of the network, Minute To Win It had finally found an answer. Apolo Anton Ohno will be the new host of the once-popular Guy Fieri program. What's the connection bewteen this and another show seen on GSN? Well, it's Dancing With The Stars where he won it all while Carrie Ann was a judge. She also hosted the short-lived revival of 1 vs. 100 on the network as well, so we say, Apolo could last longer than Carrie Ann's if it happens to be a hit on our hands. As luck would have it, we were the first to see the new logo, Flasher will snap it and we'll let you know what we think of it.

That's a keeper. More news now. If you thought Family Trade was going to be a flop, shame on you.

Act II Playhouse up in PA will do some of your GSN favorites. But we play halftime right now and DWTS 16 is just this week as of this writing. You'll see the likes of Jacoby Jones, Wynonna Judd and this for halftime, Kellie Pickler. Fact-In-The Box states that Kellie is the first American Idol contestant to cross over to the ballroom. Kellie, tell them why you're here.......

Let's hope we wish Kellie luck as she hunts for a mirrorball trophy. And while you're on an internet hunt for something, track down this:

You'll shoot down surveys, polls, games and whatever else to rack up bucks all in the glorious name of this website. Once you made a fortune, grab something you like or save it for later. That's swagbucks.com. Go online now!

3rd quarter set to begin and one thing that bites me is PYL shortening the lease to 50 episodes, so we gave the fans the reasons why and my friend David Downs has this to kick it off....

"PYL may have been highly regarded by game show fans (most of whom probably did backflips when they heard about it), but they were only O.K. to average at best in ratings. Meanwhile, Harvey Feud routinely dominates the ratings because it's recent (which hooks casual viewers, most of whom probably barely remember PYL and other older shows) and it appeals to those who like risque humor.

And there's pricing issues; the leaser (in this case, Fremantle) might be charging outrageous prices for the episodes. While I agree that bigger leases should be used weekdays and smaller ones on weekends, the current shows they have 200 eps of (Dawson Feud, Match Game, Password Plus, Clark Pyramid, Super Password) were negotiated at least several years ago, so maybe prices went up since then. So GSN is being careful with their budget.

Bottom line is that GSN is only doing what is best for their business. While you and other fanatics might not like it, they can't afford financially to jettison their bigger rated shows just to accomodate what is, in fairness, a significantly smaller group of people. If they did, the network would go under rather quickly. Then we'd have no classics airing at all."

See there? One poster agrees with that:

"Fremantle's and Sony's asking prices for classics may be high enough, GSN can only lease shows 50 episodes at a time for Fremantle classics, and a bit more than 100 for Sony classics now. Heck, Sony shows are probably cheaper to lease than Fremantle's. They had no problem picking up the rights to 200 episodes of Super Password and Password Plus and even $25K Pyramid, but that was last spring. GSN probably had (and still may have) a tight budget and can only afford a smaller number of episodes of classics now. They probably have those 50-episode leases of CS and PYL for just 6 months for all we know, and 130+ episodes of $100K Pyramid for less than 2 years, then again I may be dead wrong. Keep in mind that prices are going up all over America because of the economic state we're in now. Times are changing. Eventually we won't have any more classics, and we just have to deal with it when that day comes. For now, we should just enjoy what we have, be grateful we're seeing CS and PYL on the schedule, and eventually we may see something different in due time."

Guess that answers your question, but wait, another poster has this....

"I will admit, 50 episodes does seem like a very low number, considering that sitcoms and cartoons have generally had to accumulate 100 episodes before going into syndication. But hey, average viewers don't seem to mind that much so far. The show is pulling solid enough ratings for 9:30 AM so far (at least as well as Karn who had a lot more episodes to go around). For that matter, a number of shows with even fewer episodes have pulled solid ratings for a good amount of time (remember when Dog Eat Dog was on every night in prime time?). Maybe eventually they'll pick up 50-100 more episodes, but I guess there's no rush right now. I guess this is just a cheap way to appease the older viewers that make up GSN's primary audience in the morning."

Okay, let's end with this....

"First of all, I know the ratings were much better the first time through. Second of all, Family Feud doing so well with 41 of 50 slots might have to do with the fact that it's airing about 70 times a week. I don't approve of any network showing any show as much as they show that show. Even the price is right on as much as it could be if they had the entire run would be ridiculous. Though maybe not as much. All I am asking for is some balance, and it would be nice if they showed more than 50 which is a stupid number. Besides, during the day I'm at work and DVR it. I know that does not show up in the regular ratings because they have separate ratings for DVR."

That explains it. Now the first quarter and I want you all look at it by looking at S.C.A.T. Which is the Statistic Computer Apitude Tester as we go show-by-show on what takes the schedule.

Shows/Hours of Programming

1) Family Feud (Harvey): 21.7% of schedule

2) Baggage: 10.1% of schedule

3) Family Feud (O'Hurley): 7.2% of schedule

4) Family Feud (Karn): 6.5% of schedule

4) Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?: 6.5% of schedule

5) Minute to Win It: 5.8% of schedule

6) The Newlywed Game: 5.7% of schedule

7) Chain Reaction: 4.3% of schedule

7) Dog Eat Dog: 4.3% of schedule

7) The $100,000 Pyramid: 4.3% of schedule

8) The $25,000 Pyramid: 3.6% of schedule

9) American Bible Challenge: 2.2% of schedule

10) Lingo (Woolery): 1.8% of schedule

10) Lingo (Engvall): 1.8% of schedule

10) Catch 21: 1.8% of schedule

10) Super Password: 1.8% of schedule

10) Card Sharks: 1.8% of schedule

10) Press Your Luck: 1.8% of schedule

10) Family Feud (Dawson): 1.8% of schedule

10) Match Game: 1.8% of schedule

11) Whammy!: 1.4% of schedule

12) The Pyramid: 0.7% of schedule

12) Password Plus: 0.7% of schedule

(Source: gameshownetworknews.blogspot.com)

Now my rant: It seems that GSN has half of it on moderns, with a 1/3 on classics and another 1/3 on originals. Back then when it first started, it was 95%, yes, 95% of the classics with the rest from the 90's. By the 2000's, 75% were classics, 15% were moderns and the rest was originals. Nowadays, the moderns are dominating with Feud taking up 35% of the whole shcedule. It's not why GSN is a Feud network, but it is when you turn it on and by mornings, 2 percent get aired. That's like drinking skim milk with your Honey Comb cereal. So next time when you watch the network, try and see why the stats are not lying to you.